online reviews – Lodginghttp://lodgingmagazine.com
Official Publication of the AH&LAFri, 09 Dec 2016 20:22:37 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Managing Potentially Damaging Online Reviewshttp://lodgingmagazine.com/managing-potentially-damaging-online-reviews/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/managing-potentially-damaging-online-reviews/#respondThu, 21 Apr 2016 13:12:57 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=24472In the age of ubiquitous social media use, a guest’s Facebook status or tweet can have a huge impact on the reputation of a hotel. This is especially true when a guest starts posting about sensitive issues such as bed bugs. Benji Greenberg, founder and CEO of BCV, a reputation management company with a focus on the hospitality industry, has advised more than 100 hotels that have been called out on social media for having ...

]]>In the age of ubiquitous social media use, a guest’s Facebook status or tweet can have a huge impact on the reputation of a hotel. This is especially true when a guest starts posting about sensitive issues such as bed bugs.

Benji Greenberg, founder and CEO of BCV, a reputation management company with a focus on the hospitality industry, has advised more than 100 hotels that have been called out on social media for having bed bugs. According to Greenberg, it is imperative that hotels reach out to complaining guests immediately. “Constantly monitoring social media activity will enable hoteliers to quickly catch complaints and posts made by disgruntled guests,” says Greenberg, who urges hotel staff to interact with dissatisfied customers within two hours.

This window is small, but it is important to intervene quickly. Distressed guests will often post photographic evidence along with complaints, whether it be on a hotel’s Facebook page or their own. This can be difficult to manage because it is very visual, which will lead to others having a visceral response and commenting on the post.

“The first step is to engage them publicly and ask them to privately message the hotel,” Greenberg explains. This is because responding to posts about bed bug incidents will let both those who are issuing the complaint, as well as anyone watching online, know that it is being taken care of. Greenberg adds, “You also want to get the post offline as quickly as possible and get additional details like room number in private so that the problem can be taken care of.” Moving the conversation into a private chat feature will help cut off comments from other panicked guests. It is also very rare that guests will refuse to proactively provide information about the issue.

Hoteliers must always keep in mind that any conversation held via online messaging can be screen-grabbed and posted elsewhere. This occurs most often when the guest is unhappy with the end result. “With any sort of negative or crisis level situation, like bed bugs, you want to make sure you are connecting with the guest as a person,” Greenberg advises. Maintaining an empathetic, sympathetic, and understanding tone is essential. While each situation is different, guests are almost always looking for confirmation that they are being listened to, and that you have knowledge and authority to properly handle the situation, regardless of whether or not you believe their complaints are credible.

And, if you handle these situations well and build a good rapport with guests, they will step in to defend your property if something goes awry. When potential guests ask if a report of bed bugs on your property is true, and are questioning whether they should change their reservation, loyal repeat guests will comment that they’ve never had a problem before. Additionally, if the situation is handled sympathetically and in a timely manner, and the guest feels as though they have been listened to and taken seriously, they will often take their original post down.

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/managing-potentially-damaging-online-reviews/feed/0Survey Finds Social Media Boosts Hotel Occupancy by 2xhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/survey-finds-social-media-boosts-hotel-occupancy-by-2x/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/survey-finds-social-media-boosts-hotel-occupancy-by-2x/#commentsFri, 20 Mar 2015 14:12:22 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=17585PALO ALTO, Calif.—Hotel properties that actively engage with social media reviews grow occupancy at double the rate of properties that don’t, according to a study released by Medallia. The study examines customer and business data from more than 4,400 hotel properties worldwide to understand and quantify the impact of social media engagement on a company’s revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and social reputation. Results Overview The study found a direct relationship between responsiveness to social media ...

]]>PALO ALTO, Calif.—Hotel properties that actively engage with social media reviews grow occupancy at double the rate of properties that don’t, according to a study released by Medallia. The study examines customer and business data from more than 4,400 hotel properties worldwide to understand and quantify the impact of social media engagement on a company’s revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and social reputation.

Results Overview
The study found a direct relationship between responsiveness to social media reviews and occupancy rate. Properties that responded to more than 50 percent of social reviews grew occupancy rates by 6.4 percentage points, more than twice the rate of properties that largely ignored social media reviews. These socially engaged properties also outperformed the hospitality industry as a whole, which achieved a 4.3 percent occupancy growth rate during the same period.

“The hospitality industry has experienced the impact social media can have on their business, both positive and negative, but these findings allow properties to quantify the impact of taking action on reviews—and make it easier to justify additional investments in social media engagement,” said Aurelia Setton, Medallia’s general manager for hospitality.

Regardless of the total percentage of reviews a hotel had responded to previously, even a small increase in the proportion of reviews a hotel responded to resulted in an increase in occupancy rate. The properties that increased their responsiveness by more than 50 percent earned double the occupancy rate growth of those that didn’t improve their responsiveness:

50 percent+ increase: 6.8 percentage points of occupancy rate growth

30-50 percent increase: 3.7 percentage point growth

10-30 percent increase: 2.2 percentage point growth

1-10 percent increase: 3.2 percentage point growth

High responsiveness does not just impact occupancy rate, either. A commitment to social media engagement was found to drive similar gains in overall customer satisfaction. Properties that responded to more than 50 percent of social reviews saw their Net Promoter Scores (NPS) increase by an average of 1.4 points—while all properties with less than 50 percent responsiveness saw their scores decrease:

50 percent+ response rate: 1.4 point NPS growth

30-50 percent response rate: 0.3-point decrease

10-30 percent response rate: 1.5-point decrease

1-10 percent response rate: 1.7-point decrease

“One notable aspect of these findings is that the responses are taking place at the property level,” said Michael Morton, Best Western’s vice president of member services. “Hotels already trust their frontline with in-person customer interactions, and this research shows that letting employees engage with customers online as well—armed with their first-hand knowledge of specific customer experiences—pays real dividends.”

Additional Findings
The speed with which properties respond to customer feedback also has a significant impact on their occupancy rate. Properties that responded to feedback in less than a day on average had average occupancy rates 12.8 percent higher than properties taking longer than two days.

Responded within a day: 52.3 percent average occupancy rate

Responded in one to two days: 49.3 percent occupancy rate

Responded in more than two days: 39.5 percent occupancy rate

Hotels with the highest responsiveness to social media outperform competitors in their overall social reputation. Properties that responded to more than 50 percent of social reviews had social scores an average of five points higher than competing properties.

50 percent+ response rate: 4.9 point advantage over competitors

30-50 percent response rate: 2.7 point advantage

10-30 percent response rate: 1.2 point advantage

1-10 percent response rate: 1.2 point advantage

“Companies often use social media primarily to raise awareness about their brand, but these findings show that social engagement can also drive organizational learning and increase accountability about meeting customer needs,” said Dorian Stone, Medallia’s vice president of customer experience strategy. “Engaging thoroughly and promptly with all kinds of customer feedback shows frontline employees what they need to do to deliver better experiences—and when social media is utilized in that spirit, the gains are significant.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/survey-finds-social-media-boosts-hotel-occupancy-by-2x/feed/11How Business Travelers Buy: Hotel Pricing in a Social Worldhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/how-business-travelers-buy-hotel-pricing-in-a-social-world/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/how-business-travelers-buy-hotel-pricing-in-a-social-world/#respondThu, 20 Nov 2014 15:11:38 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=15424There is more information than ever before at the point of purchase for a hotel stay. With ratings, reviews, price, brand, and TripAdvisor rank, consumers can get a full picture of the value of a hotel as compared to others in the market. Understanding how consumers use all of the information at the point of purchase to assess value and ultimately make a purchase decision will help hotel managers build more profitable pricing and positioning ...

]]>There is more information than ever before at the point of purchase for a hotel stay. With ratings, reviews, price, brand, and TripAdvisor rank, consumers can get a full picture of the value of a hotel as compared to others in the market. Understanding how consumers use all of the information at the point of purchase to assess value and ultimately make a purchase decision will help hotel managers build more profitable pricing and positioning strategies. Unmanaged business travelers in particular make up a large and valuable segment for most hotels. Proper pricing and positioning to this market can have a huge impact to the bottom line.

To understand how business travelers buy, we recruited an online panel of business travelers who travel at least six times per year. The panel was shown a set of hotels with varying levels of price, brand, and user generated content (ratings and reviews) and were asked to indicate which hotel they would book. By tracking their pattern of choices, we were able to assess how important each attribute was to them, and how they used that attribute to assess value. This study was a follow up to an earlier studyon leisure traveler behavior.

Here is a summary of our results:

Reviews Matter: Some in industry have theorized that since frequent business travelers are more experienced with hotel stays, they probably aren’t as influenced by reviews as a less experienced traveler might be—and instead are driven by other elements like loyalty points or status. Our results showed that business travelers do pay attention to reviews. In fact, review sentiment was the most influential attribute on choice behavior, with negative reviews having a significant negative impact on value perceptions.

Beyond just paying attention to the sentiment of the reviews, business travelers also prefer a review that provides a description of the experience, as opposed a more emotional reaction. They want to know what the experience will be like, positive or negative.

Loyalty Matters: Presumably, frequent business travelers take advantage of earning loyalty program points and status. But does this influence business traveler choice behavior and value perceptions to a greater or lesser extent than price or user generated content?

Not surprisingly, we found that loyalty program membership is highly influential on choice behavior for frequent business travelers. After review sentiment, it was the second most influential attribute on overall choice behavior. Our business travelers expressed a slight preference for a known brand over an unknown brand, but a significant preference for a brand they identified as their “preferred” brand. In fact, it appeared that business travelers were wiling to put up with an experience that was just “OK” to stay at a hotel where they could earn their points.

Price Matters: It’s a commonly held belief that business travelers are not price sensitive. However, our study results showed that business travelers did respond to a “deal” or the lowest offered price but only the lowest offered price. Once the price was raised above that lower level, changes up or down made no difference. This goes counter to previously held beliefs about business traveler’s reaction to price, suggesting that maybe there is just something about human nature that responds to a deal.

The impact of low price was not great enough to overcome the negative impact of a negative review. This result suggests that all things being equal with reputation, a hotel could use price to attract this valuable demand segment. It is important to note, however, that the price has to be the lowest in the market—a couple of dollars here or there is not going to shift business traveler demand. Of course, dropping price has other implications that need to be considered.

Building effective pricing and positioning strategies is not getting any easier. There are many levers that hotels can pull to “win” in their markets, but to be successful at this, they need to carefully assess how they stand relative to the market. Hotels with robust loyalty programs have a leg up with business travelers, but most frequent travelers have multiple program memberships—they will go to a competing hotel if yours doesn’t measure up. You still need to pay attention to how you sit within the market in both your reputation and your price, no matter how good your loyalty program is.

About the authors:Kelly A. McGuire, Ph.D., is executive director of hospitality and travel global practice at SAS, and Breffni M. Noone, Ph.D., is associate professor of hospitality management at The Pennsylvania State University.

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/how-business-travelers-buy-hotel-pricing-in-a-social-world/feed/0Pressing the Reset Button on TripAdvisorhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/pressing-the-reset-button-on-tripadvisor/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/pressing-the-reset-button-on-tripadvisor/#respondWed, 19 Mar 2014 13:55:54 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=10294For a hotel with less-than-desirable TripAdvisor reviews, a major renovation could offer a quick ticket to improving its online reputation. In July of last year, TripAdvisor updated its review removal policy to give hotels the opportunity to wipe out old reviews once they’ve completed large-scale transformation projects. “It really has to be a substantial overhaul,” says Brian Payea, head of industry relations at the online travel review site. “It’s not new finishes and new carpet. ...

]]>For a hotel with less-than-desirable TripAdvisor reviews, a major renovation could offer a quick ticket to improving its online reputation. In July of last year, TripAdvisor updated its review removal policy to give hotels the opportunity to wipe out old reviews once they’ve completed large-scale transformation projects. “It really has to be a substantial overhaul,” says Brian Payea, head of industry relations at the online travel review site. “It’s not new finishes and new carpet. It has to touch the majority of the property.”

The policy was put in place to give hotels that truly offer a new guest experience a clean slate—especially with travelers who have never visited the property and are coming to read reviews for the first time, Payea explains. “We recognized in conversations with properties that the old reviews weren’t going to provide much value to travelers and really wouldn’t represent the hotel.”

Once a hotel completes a renovation and contacts TripAdvisor to get the old reviews removed, a moderation team assesses the project. Hotel owners and operators are required to share documents—building and work permits, invoices for materials and labor, notarized letters from city or tourism officials, and photos and press releases—that show the scope of the renovation. “The process does end up being subjective,” Payea says. “We can’t put a dollar value on it. There is an evaluation of the before and the after.”

But hotels considering the review-removal process have to be 100 percent sure it’s what they want. They can’t weed out negative reviews and keep positive ones they racked up over the years. All reviews will be permanently deleted, which may impact the property’s listing on TripAdvisor’s popularity index. Once reviews are removed and the count is set back to zero, the ranking of a property will likely drop. However, Payea says hotels that truly provide a different experience after a major renovation can rapidly move up in the ranks as positive reviews get attached to the property.

If hotels do decide to start from scratch following a renovation, Payea reminds owners to update other portions of their TripAdvisor profiles—the description, photos, and amenities—to reflect the changes. “If there are new reviews that are going to be describing a different experience, everything should work together.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/pressing-the-reset-button-on-tripadvisor/feed/0Noise Complaints Top Online Hotel Reviewshttp://lodgingmagazine.com/noise-complaints-top-online-hotel-reviews/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/noise-complaints-top-online-hotel-reviews/#respondThu, 26 Sep 2013 21:00:03 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=6387An recent analysis of online guest reviews done by ReviewPro reveals that noise is the number one most common complaint by consumers in all but one city. The reviews came from 5,683 hotels in 20 key tourist destinations. Except from Cape Town in South Africa, noise is among the five worst rated concepts in the remaining 19 cities—garnering more negative mentions than other complaints. Hotel “elevators” were the second-largest source of complaints, followed by negative ...

]]>An recent analysis of online guest reviews done by ReviewPro reveals that noise is the number one most common complaint by consumers in all but one city. The reviews came from 5,683 hotels in 20 key tourist destinations.

Except from Cape Town in South Africa, noise is among the five worst rated concepts in the remaining 19 cities—garnering more negative mentions than other complaints. Hotel “elevators” were the second-largest source of complaints, followed by negative mentions about “smells”, ReviewPro’s analysis shows. Negative references to air conditioning and heating systems are also worth noting, since they were highlighted in twice as many reviews as Internet issues.